Eric Blum: Marking Predictions for 14

Eric serves BMC as the Vice President CTO for EMEA, with a particular focus on our cloud efforts and business service management. He also heads up the BMC Enterprise Service Division in France. You can follow him on Twitter @Eric_P_Blum.

Here are Eric’s responses:

1. Describe in one sentence what you do and why you¹re good at it.

In one word:Transformation.

Having the chance to interface with multiple customers from multiple countries and industries, I am in the perfect spot to capture Business & IT trends, Resistance factors and competition.

It is my passion to articulate and architect the future state of IT Management, challenge BMC and our customers’ maturity to endorse it, and detail the transformation plan to evolve towards it with innovative technologies and practices.

2. Cloud Computing, Big Data or Consumerization: Which trend do you feel is having the most impact on IT today and why?

Cloud computing in his broadest definition impacts IT at all levels. At Application development, more than 75% of companies will have taken the turn to new development of PaaS-based frameworks (e.g. Force.com). 80% of companies already have 6 or more Business critical processes automated with SaaS. And needless to say that IaaS is now a commodity for most companies using AWS, Azure or so many other providers.

In that sense, all companies are now embracing multi-sourced delivery, which is fundamentally changing their role to an IS Integrator and provider.

Companies are re-defining themselves around a cloud-first strategy.

IT Management & governance will be the key to their success.

Without Cloud, Big Data & Consumerization will struggle to become mainstream.

3. What do you think is the biggest misconception about Cloud Computing/Big Data/Consumerization?

Believing that there are evolutionary steps of known capabilities is fundamentally wrong;

Cloud computing is not outsourcing.

Big Data is not Business Intelligence.

Consumerization is not web turned into mobile.

Those 3 technologies are disruptive. New business model shall be imagined and IT shall approach this with a Greenfield mindset.

4. Which (Cloud Computing/Big Data/Consumerization) trend has surprised you most in the last five years?

I was surprised by the accelerated adoption of those technologies by the business entities which quickly generated shadow IT.

IT was too much cast into their standard practices to endorse the capabilities and left the room to external specialized Service Providers.

That had a snowball effect, and funded the business development of Cloud providers, which accelerated the innovation.

The gap between corporate IT and Service Providers to support the business only grew then.

I am still surprised about the inertia of most corporate Infrastructure departments, and how long it takes them to be fully Service Oriented.

5. How has Cloud Computing/Big Data/Consumerization had the biggest impact in YOUR life to date?

Having to deal with 3 new disruptive technologies at the same time, is the dream of any CTO in his industry.

The art of the possible is immense, and the opportunity is without limit for BMC.

Even more personally, turning myself into an ultra-marathon / X-Trail runner, I could not do this without a large set of SaaS based services for Geo-tracking, Heartbeat & Blood pressure monitoring, Food Logging, Nutrition management, intelligent weight scale, not forgetting Social and community network for self-coaching & motivation.

All this is in an extreme mobile and unfriendly environment (from cities around the world, to High summits, to deep forests, to deserts), anytime, with different gears & sensors depending the sport. This has enabled me to lose 37kg in 7 months, and to prepare myself for my next adventure: crossing the Negev Desert – 280km in 8 days, starting this Dec 28th.

I am now turning this into a program, hoping to rally as many people as possible: Running into the Digital Age. Stay tuned as it is about to be rolled out!

6. On a lighter note – If Cloud/Big Data/Consumerization could be personified by a superhero, which superhero would it be and why?

Batman for sure, because of his dual personality:

Cloud: He can achieve what he wants because there is no limit to his strength but it could be misused and goes against him (think about the real cost of Cloud when mismanaged).

Big Data: He seems to know everything real time but this is getting him into challenging questions about his roots and purpose (Are all customers happy about the perspective of Big Data and the outcomes).

Consumerization: I love his car & his fashion!

7. What aspect of (Cloud Computing/Big Data/ Consumerization) are you most excited about in the future, and what excites you about it?

With Digital Service Management, BMC has a unique opportunity to define a new way to run IT and leave most of his competitors behind. This is happening now with a number of our customers.

The internet of things with billions of smart objects connected, will take it to another level where every aspects of our life will be enabled by Technology based services. Thinking that there could be BMC technology behind it, and that I will have had a modest contribution to it, gets my passion for IT to another level, again…

These postings are my own and do not necessarily represent BMC's position, strategies, or opinion.

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BMC is a global leader in software solutions that help IT transform traditional businesses into digital enterprises for the ultimate competitive advantage. Our Digital Enterprise Management set of IT solutions is designed to make digital business fast, seamless, and optimized. From mainframe to mobile to cloud and beyond, we pair high-speed digital innovation with robust IT industrialization—allowing our customers to provide intuitive user experiences with optimized performance, cost, compliance, and productivity. BMC solutions serve more than 15,000 customers worldwide including 82 percent of the Fortune 500.